Sharing Extension Resources Virtually (SERV) is an online professional development opportunity we provide twice annually to facilitate skills development among Michigan State UniversityExtension staff. Most offerings are provided by MSU Extension staff or faculty members who have experience worth sharing. Please consider submitting a proposal for one or more SERV sessions of three possible lengths: 10, 25 or 50 minutes. Sessions can focus on core competencies and skills, knowledge or information relevant to some aspect of MSU Extension, or reports of projects or programs you think your colleagues should know about. And feel free to submit (and host) sessions led by colleagues and partners from outside MSUE. Our one request is that you make your sessions engaging and participatory. Click on this link for more information and to apply. The last day to submit a proposal is April 24.

Your participation requires no travel other than getting to your office. Sessions will take place at your desk June 17 from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sign up now for your choice of sessions.

Q: If you have permission to use a photo then you want to use it again (with citation) do you have to get permission a second time?

A: The short answer to your question – and to many copyright-related questions – is “it depends.”

The long answer is that it depends on what rights you asked for and what rights the photographer or copyright holder granted you the first time you asked for permission to use the photo. Different photographers will grant different levels of permission, and may or may not charge a fee for doing so.

For example, if a photographer gives you what’s called “one-time use” permission to use a photo, then you have permission to use it just once, in whatever form (such as in a book, article, video, poster or brochure) you specified in your original permission request. If you want to use that photo a second time, even if it’s for something related to the first request, such as on a bookmark promoting the book you printed the photo in, you’ll have to ask the photographer for permission again.

If the photographer gave you permission to use the photo as often as you’d like, in whatever form you’d like, for as long as you’d like, then you won’t have to ask for permission to use that photo again, whether or not the later use is related to the original request.

Some tips for requesting permission and using photos from third parties follow:

Address your request for permission to the copyright holder or the copyright holder’s designee. Sometimes a photographer assigns a photo’s copyright to his or her business or sells it to a third-party, such as a stock photo house. Sometimes photographers are assigned to take photos as part of their jobs, which means their employers (such as Michigan State University in the case of MSU Extension employees) are the copyright holders. (Note: Beware online photos. Sometimes photos that appear on a web page or social media site have “gone viral” and been shared hundreds or thousands of times. Just because you see a photo on a given page doesn’t mean the owner of that page holds the copyright on the photo, has the right to grant you permission to use it or is even using it with permission himself or herself.)

Ask for exactly the type of permission you want: Print or online? One-time or unlimited use? As-is, edited or adapted?

Get permission in writing – email will do – because verbal instructions won’t hold up in court.

Keep the permission letter on file permanently.

Follow the instructions for whom to name in the photo credit as closely as you can.

Give yourself plenty of time to work through the permissions process. If the photographer is someone in the same office, permission may come nearly instantly. If you’re buying a photo from an online stock photo company, as soon as you’ve entered your credit card information, the photo will be yours to download. But if you’re working with an individual or a big publisher, it could takes days or weeks for the paperwork to wind its way through their system.

Michigan State University Extension‘s first SERV session has come and gone and I feel confident in declaring it a great success. We are anxiously awaiting feedback to see what we did well and what we can do better in the future, but we already know that the March 18 Sharing Extension Resources Virtually online conference saw more than 150 attendees at 50 sessions.

The conference featured sessions varied in both subject matter and in length. With five-minute Ignite sessions, 25-minute lightning sessions and 45-minute traditional sessions covering topics delivered by communications, the business office and Extension educators, there was a chance for everyone to learn about an array of interesting subjects.

A huge thank you goes to those who helped put on the conference: Doug Brahee, Megghan Honke, Cheryl Peters, Matt Raven, Luke Reese, Matt Shane, Lela Vandenburg, all the presenters and the attendees.

During Monday’s Director’s update, we received some encouraging feedback from SERV participants about what they learned and what they wanted in a future SERV conference. But Cheryl Peters has developed a survey, and I encourage everyone who attended the sessions live to take a few minutes and provide some more systematic feedback through the survey. It will help us ensure that the June 17 SERV conference is even better.

If you couldn’t attend Monday’s sessions live they are all archived online and ready to view.

If you have a SERV sessions you would like to propose or have a topic you would like to see someone else deliver, Events Management is taking Requests for Proposals right now. Proposals are due by May 1, so start working on them soon.

Register now for the inaugural session of SERV– Sharing Extension Resources Virtually. Your participation requires no travel, other thangetting to your office. Sessions will place at your desk March 18 from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sign up now for your choice of sessions. Listen to the MSU Extension Update webinar March 4 at 4 p.m. for more information.

There have been at least 20 proposals submitted for the various sessions and it is going to be a great learning opportunity for everyone — me included.

SERV is a series of professional development sessions conducted online. The first SERV date is March 18 and will be followed by other SERV sessions on June 17 and Sept. 23. All run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. This is our way of taking the online experience we’ve developed at Fall Extension Conference and extending it throughout the year.

The SERV sessions fall under three categories:

Ignite: 5-minute presentation with 20 PowerPoint slides or fewer

Lightning Round: 25-minute session with at least 10 minutes of interaction and discussion

Traditional Interactive: 50-minute session with at least 15 minutes of interaction and discussion

You may have a particular professional development need you’d like a colleague to cover in SERV. Please share this information with that person – even if they are an Extension employee from another state or someone outside of Extension. We can tap into a wealth of resources to assist us in doing our jobs more effectively.